Making a groupbox button win32 C++ - c++

i have a button that is a rectangle how would i put words in it i want to make so ican click the word and it starts the progrma i know ShellExecute the style is BS_GROUPBOX

If you have more than one program you want to start, you need a button per program you want to start.
To start you external progrma, in the button parent window, you need to process the WM_COMMAND message with the BN_CLICKED notification.
To set the text of the button, you need to send WM_SETTEXT message to the button with the text you want shown.
Btw, BS_GROUPBOX is used for creating the rectangle around radio buttons. This style is not going to work for your scenario.
If you want an alternative to using multiple Button controls, you can use a Toolbar. In fact, it seems to me that a toolbar would be a better control for you. You can read more about creating a toolbar.

Related

Embedding dialogs in main dialog and switching them with button click in MFC

I have a design like below:
So basically, I want to embed three dialogs in the application main dialog and switch between them, for each button click i.e., button 1 will show dialog one , button 2 will hide dialog 1 and show dialog 2 .. and so on.
Each dialog will be having a different design and functions.
I tried using CPropertySheet class to Add pages but its GUI is different. It has either option for navigating the dialogs using next / back button , or from a tab control.
None of which is as per my requirement.
So I want to know is it possible to have a design like this in MFC ? If yes how? Which Class/ control should I use.
Any help will be appreciated.
What you can do is use a normal CDialog class, add your buttons to it and also create a frame/rect as a placeholder for where your embedded dialogs are to appear. The following piece of code will create and position your embedded dialog.
CRect rect;
CWnd *pHost = GetDlgItem(ID_OF_YOUR_FRAME_RECT);
pHost->GetWindowRect(&rect);
ScreenToClient(&rect);
pDialog->Create(ID_OF_YOUR_DIALOG, this);
pDialog->MoveWindow(&rect);
pDialog->ShowWindow(SW_SHOW);
On button clicks, you hide the previously shown dialog (SW_HIDE) and show your selected dialog(SW_SHOW) with ShowWindow(...).
If you create your embedded dialogs with IDD_FORMVIEW style in the add resource editor it'll have the proper styles for embedding.
Another option is probably to use an embedded PropertySheet and hide the tab row and programatically change the tabs on the button clicks. I just find it to be too much fuzz with borders, positioning, validation and such for my liking.
If you have the MFC Feature Pack, that first came with VS2008 SP1 and is in all later versions, you might like to consider CMFCPropertySheet. There are a number of examples on the linked page, that are very similar to your design.
For example, this:
What worked for me just using dialog based application is SetParent() method. Dont know why nobody mentioned it. It seems to work fine.
I am doing like below:
VERIFY(pDlg1.Create(PanelDlg::IDD, this));
VERIFY(pDlg2.Create(PanelDlg2::IDD, this));
VERIFY(pDlg3.Create(PanelDlg2::IDD, this));
::SetParent(pDlg1.GetSafeHwnd(), this->m_hWnd);
::SetParent(pDlg2.GetSafeHwnd(), this->m_hWnd);
::SetParent(pDlg3.GetSafeHwnd(), this->m_hWnd);
Now I can show or hide a child dialog at will (button clicks) as below:
pDlg1.ShowWindow(SW_SHOW);
pDlg2.ShowWindow(SW_HIDE);
pDlg3.ShowWindow(SW_HIDE);

OnLButtonDown() is not fired if I click an item in my dialog (ListBox, CheckBox etc) but it fires ok if I click background or Static Text

If I click anywhere on the dialog window, like in the "background", or on a Static Text, the function OnLButtonDown() is fired. But if I click a ListBox/EditBox/Combo/Calendar/Checkbox etc is not fired.
I thought that because these have control variables atached to it, and the Static Text don't. But adding a new Listbox to my Dialog and testing, I see that it doesn't fire either, so now I am confused...
I added OnLButtonDown() with the Class Wizard, it appears in:
BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMFCTesting2Dlg, CDialogEx)
ON_WM_SYSCOMMAND()
// other handlers, etc
ON_WM_LBUTTONDOWN()
ON_WM_LBUTTONUP()
END_MESSAGE_MAP()
My function:
void CMFCTesting2Dlg::OnLButtonDown(UINT nFlags, CPoint point)
{
AfxMessageBox(CString("BUTTON DOWN"));
CDialogEx::OnLButtonDown(nFlags, point);
}
I tried calling CDialogEx:: ... before AfxMessageBox... but same result.
The CListBox item, has the Notify option set to True, as I seen some advices in other posts.
I suspect that the WM notification message is captured somehow by the ListBox, and not sent "forward" to my CMFCTesting2Dlg, but I understood that this should happen with the Notify option set to True, on the ListBox, no? (well, obviously, not...)
Sorry, I am new to dealing with WM in MFC.
BTW, I use Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, and this is a Visual C++ - MFC- MFC Application - Dialog Based project.
How can I capture this mouse down event if clicked on a listbox / combo / etc?
On the LONG STORY, I am actually trying to accomplish this issue:
I have two listboxes (lets say), and I want to scroll them synchronously, when user scrolls one of them, others must scroll the same (or update in the next moment). And I thought of using on mouse down to track the position of every Listbox (with the GetTopIndex), and on mouse up, to GetTopIndex again and compare with the previous ones. If a change was made, then a listbox was scrolled and then update all listboxes with SetTopIndex. The unfriendly solution for the user, but simpler for me, would be clicking a button that does this verification / update, but its not elegant at all, and it can only set them at the same level, but can't determine which one was scrolled last time. This automatically scrolling of the listboxes should be made just for displaying, it is not important the selections in the listboxes. I tried using the Message Type in the Add Event Handler for the Listbox, but none that are displayed work for my problem, KillFocus and SetFocus, are not fired if the scroll-bar is dragged, only if an item in the listbox is clicked... and I didn't succeed on the others message type either, from the Add Event Handler.
Once a window handles a message, it stops being sent to the other windows beneath it. A static window doesn't handle a mouse down, so it goes to the dialog. The other controls all handle it in some fashion (setting focus at least) so it never gets to the dialog.
You can override the OnLButtonDown handler in each of the controls to do something else once they've finished their default handling in the base class. You might also get to see the message in the PreTranslateMessage method of the dialog.
As far as getting the List Controls to sync scrolling goes, your best bet would be to intercept WM_VSCROLL by subclassing CListCtrl or perhaps by PreTranslateMessage, and then calling SetScrollInfo on the other list. If the number of items in the lists are the same, it should be fairly simple.

"?" help button triggers WM_HELP _and_ WM_LBUTTONUP

I have a Windows application that registers one CALLBACK procedure that handles WM_HELP messages for the dialog, and one CALLBACK procedure that handles WM_LBUTTONUP messages for a custom button.
Now, when the user clicks the "?" button, then clicks the custom button, the help opens up as expected (on mouse down), BUT if the help window is not occluding the button, a WM_LBUTTONUP message is triggered as well for the custom button (on mouse up). This causes the button to trigger when the user was only asking for help.
Is there any way to stop the WM_LBUTTONUP message from being sent if the button press is for help?
EDIT: The custom button is implemented using a STATIC control. I believe this is because it needs to have an image and no border. So, it does not send BN_CLICKED notifications. In fact, it does not seem to trigger WM_COMMAND in the parent at all.
Thanks
This is normal. Be sure to use the button's BN_CLICKED notification to see the difference. Generated when the user clicks the button, not generated when the user uses the help cursor. The button still sees the normal button up/down messages so that's not a good trigger to detect a click. Extra bonus is that the button can now also be clicked with the keyboard (space bar).
A good class library takes care of these nasty little details.
A better way would be to create ? as a custom control with BS_CHECKBOX | BS_PUSHLIKE style and capture the mouse. After that you will get all the WM_LBUTTONDOWN message to this custom control and then you can use WindowFromPoint to get the window where the WM_LBUTTONDOWN happened and can send a custom notification to the parent window. The parent window can then show a the tooltip or open the help doc or discard it.
The advantage is, you create the control only once and you can use it in multiple places.
Okay, I fixed it by creating the custom button (static control) with the SS_NOTIFY style, then handling the STN_CLICKED notification in the WM_COMMAND message. (SS_NOTIFY causes WM_COMMAND to trigger in the parent when it is clicked.) This does not trigger when using the "?" button. Thanks!

c++ win32 create a text only button

I would like to add a simple text button to my c++ win32 application. I'm creating the button using CreateWindowEx function, but can't figure out the correct style to do so. I would like to display a text only button and be able to recive messages when the user clicks on it. The style i would like to get is identical to the text button in windows 7 system volume control (where it says "Mixer"). If possible i would like to display a tooltip also.
That mixer control looks more like a hyperlink control than a button. I'd go for the SysLink control if that's what you need.
You could create a "Button" class window with the BS_OWNERDRAW style and handle the WM_DRAWITEM messages. In your WM_DRAWITEM message handler you can simply display the text.
Actually that button is an owner draw button - it listens to mouse move messages and when you hover over it, it underlines the text (the syslink control doesn't have this behavior). Otherwise it's a stock button.

How to hide a modal dialogbox in MFC application?

I have a hard time hiding a modal dialog box. What I am doing is - I am trying to design a UI for my own application in MFC, kind of a setup assistant.
In the 1st dialog box I have NEXT button, so when I click that it has to hide the 1st dialog box and move on to the 2nd dialog box, where I have some controls in 2nd dialog box.
How can I achieve that?
I have never tried to hide a Modal dialog...not sure how it can be done.
Anyway, it seems to me you don't need to hide the dialog but destroy the first one and create the second one. You can use EndDialog to terminate a modal dialog.
But MFC has its own mechanism to create your own wizard, have a look at this class CPropertySheet. I am sure you can find thousand of examples, this is one.
Hope it helps.
You can use ShowWindow() function to hide modal
Its default patametet is SW_SHOW which is equal true value 1 and
To hide modal use SW_HIDE value when you click next button
You just use ShowWindow(SW_HIDE) If you make prev button you should use modal pointer
Or next modal should child modal because you cannot have prev modal variable.
I wish you understand me for my english